This Program Project includes research projects designed to investigate the developmental processes that characterize high-risk, normal, and retarded children. The research projects deal with the infant's attention, language development, and visual processes, as they are related to the intellectual functioning of preschool and older children. The children at-risk for mental retardation are selected from intensive care-unit patient populations. The objectives of the project are to 1) identify and systematically investigate processes considered important for the development of intellectual competence, 2) identify differences in the functioning of these processes and specify their course of development in high-risk and normal children, 3) determine the value of process difference information in predicting the later intellectual competence of high-risk children, and 4) provide basic information about the processes underlying intellectual competence that would be of value in developing remediation and/or compensatory procedures for those performing at a sub-average intellectual level.